Always producing outstanding work without cutting corners yields quality. The requirement for quality management is created by the presence of this quality throughout the project life cycle. Additionally, it is further divided into Quality Control and Quality Assurance in order to streamline the process of this quality management.

For a construction project to provide a high-quality good or service, quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) are essential components of the quality management process. Professionals working on construction sites frequently combine these terms and misuse them interchangeably.

Control and prevention are concepts that are frequently mixed together. When it comes to managing quality on a construction project, quality control and quality assurance go hand in hand.

On a building site, these terms, however, relate to very different operations. Continue reading to find out the distinction and why it is important to know it.

What do QC and QA mean?

While Quality Assurance (QA) refers to the process of avoiding problems from occurring, Quality Control (QC) is understood as the process of identifying and fixing problems once they arise. The concepts are further clarified by the following definitions of the corresponding terminology.

Quality Assurance

It is a system of consistent technical procedures for monitoring and regulating the calibre of the construction work being done on the job site. The QC system is intended to: Provide regular and consistent tests to assure the elements, material, or service’s integrity, accuracy, and completeness.

All QC procedures, as well as any errors that were found and the steps taken to correct them, should be documented and archived.

The greatest technique to guarantee the highest quality on a building project is to use digital innovation in the form of web panels where all the project monitoring and quality analytics systems are implemented.

Quality Control:

Before a project starts, a number of planned and methodical exercises are spread out and referred to as quality assurance (QA). This plan’s goal is to guarantee that high-quality needs will be met throughout the duration of the construction project.

Simply put, quality assurance (QA) is the process of organising to carry out the proper actions in the proper manner to provide the required quality at the conclusion of the construction project.

Contrarily, a hazy understanding might result in poor judgement, which raises the likelihood of faults developing and expanding the number of claims.

If real quality is routinely evaluated, measured, and improved, we are more likely to meet our quality goals.

What distinguishes QA from QC in the building industry?

Fundamentally, QC is concerned with finding the errors, while QA is concerned with preventing flaws.

A plan is what quality assurance is all about. It is completed prior to the start of construction. Quality is monitored by a procedure called quality assurance. QA keeps a record of the procedures, guidelines, benchmarks, and tactics that must be followed and makes sure that those who need to know about them are informed of them.

Observation and activity are crucial QC elements. The work needs to be screened to make sure the results are what you expected them to be after the best structure and arrangement have been established (done in QA). To put it another way, quality control is the examination of the workmanship at a construction site. The goal of quality control is to ensure that the quality is met.

Let’s use an example to better comprehend it. QA during slab construction is having someone see and examine the formwork and rebar, reporting any concerns to have them resolved, and monitoring that they are set before concreting in the specific slab begins. While QC will be the specific person or inspector visiting the building site, ensuring that the formwork is solid and safe with no debris cover blocks are in place, and that the number of rebars, spacing, and diameter of the rebars are as per the drawing.

The distinction will be made evident by the following three expressions.

• QC chooses vendors, products, and procedures that meet QA criteria.
• QC makes that the building complies with the standards set by QA.
• QC checks the project requirements against QA processes to confirm that the construction complies with the criteria set forth by QA.

What distinguishes QA from QC in the construction industry?

Many of the forms used in the AEC sector are manual, outdated, and paper-based. Many of these processes required us to think them over again. In many cases, we had to abandon the outdated practises in favour of cutting-edge workflows that are enabled by the technology and innovation that are currently available. Oil and Gas Courses in Kerala provided by Reliant Oil and Gas is now providing the latest Technology based training in this field.

Conclusion

QA and QC are distinct concepts that should not be used interchangeably. QC is concerned with the final result, while QA is more process-oriented. The effective management of quality on a building project depends on both of these. There are many Institutes in Kochi that provides the best QA/QC courses in Kerala.

If your layout plans are not followed or taken into account, the quality objectives cannot be met. Inspecting or testing without a plan might occasionally result in missing important details. So it’s crucial to juggle and balance both quality management duties.

In conclusion, it’s critical to understand that quality assurance does not replace the necessity for quality control, as QC is crucial and shouldn’t be compromised at any point in the construction project’s quality management process.